


Pineapples, Smoke, and Maladaptive Coping Strategies

by bossxtweed



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Destruction of Gallifrey (Doctor Who), Fire, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossxtweed/pseuds/bossxtweed
Summary: Following an argument with Ashildr, Clara ventures to Gallifrey and encounters the Master.Based on the prompt: A post-s9 Clara Oswald runs into Dhawan!Master.
Relationships: The Master & Clara Oswald
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11
Collections: Missed Connections Exchange





	Pineapples, Smoke, and Maladaptive Coping Strategies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SleepyMaddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyMaddy/gifts).



Ashildr had needed a break. Or, rather, Clara had needed a break from Ashildr. Travelling through time and space with an ancient immortal whose memory sometimes sent her back to the middle ages in speech and mannerism was _exhausting,_ and they had spent too much of their time _arguing_ lately to where Clara bristled at the mere _thought_ of them being in the same room. 

Dressed in a blue, short-sleeved dress with pineapples adorning its surface, Clara stepped out of her TARDIS---still stuck as a diner, as neither of them wanted to mess with the chameleon circuit and risk breaking it further---and into the glare of twin suns poking through clouds of thick, grey smoke.

She took a step and collided into the back of a man, nearly half-a-foot taller than herself, dressed in a purple overcoat and plaid trousers that did not reach his ankles. 

“Sorry!” she raised her hands in placation. “Didn’t see where I was--”

The man whirled, squinting down at her. “Clara?”

She blinked, pulling back. “You know me?”

He laughed before stalking slowly, carefully around her, a predator with its prey, but he stopped suddenly, swiping a hand out from his forehead. “Ha! You’re _still_ so **little,** Clara! It’s _adorable,_ really!”

Clara’s eyes widened. “No…. you _can’t_ be!”

He laughed. “But I _am._ Remember what I told you in Venice?”

She frowned. “That---‘Death is for other people’. You don’t _stay_ dead….but what’s happened? Why are you _here---alone?!”_ she stepped back, folded her arms over her chest, and coughed. 

Ash. 

_Why_ was there ash falling? She coughed again, looking up at the sky, and whirled on her heels, seeing rubble and destruction and absolutely _no one else,_ and she backed instinctively towards her ship. Another time, maybe. 

“There’s _no one else, Clara,”_ the Master intoned. “Just _you_ and _me…_ and the **_corpses.”_ **

Clara’s eyes widened and she shook her head, saying, “No… no! The Doctor tried _so hard_ to get back! **_Why_ **would you---”

The Master rushed forward, knocking her down, fury burning in his gaze. “Don’t you **_dare_ ** speak that name to me, Clara! Don’t you **_dare!”_ **

Frowning, she could only stare at him, her mind reeling. Everything her Doctor had worked for, saving this planet time and time again despite their attempts to leave it, how they _still_ _cared_ even though the Lord President didn’t seem to… no. 

“You said---you _said,_ “I just want my friend back.” You _told_ the Doctor that, and you told them where to find Gallifrey, and now… oh.” slowly, cautiously, she stood, searching the Master’s eyes for _some_ sort of explanation. “Something… something _happened,_ yea? You… you don’t seem to be enjoying this, Missy. There’s _pain_ in your eyes and you’ve yet to say _anything_ about Danny, or--”

He clenched one trembling hand at his side and pointed at her with his spare hand, saying, “ _don’t_ call me that! Missy’s **dead** now. I’ve... _buried_ her, deep in _here,”_ he moved his hand and pointed at the center of his chest, “deep in my hearts. I…”

He frowned, gave a dismissive wave of his hand, and sank to the floor. 

“Master,” Clara spoke, taking a small step forward. “I _can_ help you, if you let me…”

He shook his head. “No. Why are you here? The last I saw you, I’d shoved you into a Dalek and the Doctor was set to _exterminate_ you… then, of course, he _didn’t._ But! You don’t seem the sort to just… _pop in_ for a chat with the Time Lords.”

Clara exhaled through her nose and shook her head. “I’m _dead.”_

Silence. 

Ash swirled around them, settling in her hair and clothes, and she looked him over carefully, noting the dark circles under his eyes and the thickness of his eye lashes, and for a moment she could---pretend, almost---that he _wasn’t_ the same person who murdered her boyfriend and weaponized the Earth’s dead and danced with Daleks and threatened her and did all sorts of other horrible things.

The Master blinked. 

More silence. Were she still alive, Clara imagined that her heart would be thudding in her ears and she’d feel _warm_ and _clammy_ at the same time, but all she could hear was the crackling of fire as the world around them burned. 

“--- _he_ did it, didn’t he? Took you out of your timeline… heh,” he laughed. “Figures. Saving _everyone else…”_

“---yes, the D--” she quelled under a glare and corrected, _“they_ did.”

He blinked again. “Alright. Tell me a story, if you’ll please. _How_ did you end up _like **this,**_ outside the--- _obvious…”_

Clara tilted her head back, shut her eyes against the ash. It tickled her nose. After a moment, she tilted her head from side-to-side, stretched her arms out in front of her, and laced her fingers together, cracking her bones. Right. If the Master wanted a story, they would _get_ a story.

Opening her eyes, she said, “it started in the _ninth_ century, I think? The Doctor and I found ourselves caught up in village drama and there was a girl there, named Ashildr, and she sacrificed herself to save everyone---except the Doctor,” she watched the Master wince at the word, “used Mire technology to save her.”

She paused. “How much of this do you want to know?”

“All of it. As much as you’re willing to share, so long as it convinces me _you’re,”_ he reached out, jabbing her shoulder with an index finger, “ _real_ and **not** a hallucination.”

Frowning, she replied, “alright. Well, we left Ashildr to her newly found immortality and came across her _again_ in the 17th Century, posing as a highwayman, had to help her stop an attempted alien incursion, then…. well. We sorta lost track of her, after that. Until…. until one day,” she quieted and turned, shocked to see him watching her intently. “Um. Well. Ashildr started calling herself “Lady Me” and then became “Mayor Me” of a trap street in London, where she had a Quantum Shade set up to kill any wrong-doers, only my friend _Rigsy_ ended up with it, and he’d _just_ had a baby, and--”

The Master cut her off with a dark, empty laugh. “You don’t have to finish; I’ve surmised where you're going, and I’m _really_ not surprised in the slightest. It was _me,_ after all, who put you and the Doctor together, because I _knew_ what the two of you were like and that you could only destroy one another.”

Clara tilted her head back and scoffed. “I _very much_ resent that, Master. We also **_helped_** one another! I was their _friend---”_

The Master gagged. “No, Clara. That’s _another_ word that’s off limits… we _were_ friends, once. _Equals,_ even. But I learned something about them that… rendered us _less than._ I _knew_ it was foolish,” he tore his gaze away and sagged under the weight of some unknown horror, “we had been _so close_ to one another as children… but it wasn’t their first, or their only, time as a child, and everything the Time Lords were was because of _them.”_

She shook her head. “I don’t understand--”

 _“Of_ **_course_ ** you don’t,” he spat back. “I couldn’t _expect_ you to… but we’re not the same. the Doctor and I…. and the Time Lords…” he shook his head. “Y’know, **s** ince they’re all dead, you can keep going, Clara. See the universes that I’ve burned---save them, even, if you feel so inclined---and know that you’re _valued.”_

“ **\---you** are valued,” Clara breathed, hardly believing that she’d said it. “You mean _so much_ to the Doctor, and--”

“Answer me this,” he interjected, holding up an index finger, “ _why_ did you come here at all? You don’t seem the type of person to easily make peace with going to your death…”

She bit her lip, raised her shoulders in a shrug. “I...I dunno. Ashildr and I have been going through a rough patch the past year or so. It’s gotten to where I can _not_ stand being in the same room as her, and I’ve…”

“You’re bargaining with her, aren’t you? The longer the two of you get along, the less she has to be alone… you’re more like the Doctor than I thought, Clara. Threatening to go off to your death? That’s downright _cruel.”_

“Is _not!”_ she retorted. “It helps keep us both _honest,_ because whenever I come back we have _no choice_ but to talk about whatever’s bothering us--”

“Once you’ve returned from the brink of death? I’ve tried that _several times,_ and it only _sort of_ worked **_once._ ** I was being punished with execution followed by my body spending a thousand years worth in a vault, but the Doctor did their clever Doctor thing and _saved_ me---course, I _did_ have to spend time in the vault, but the Doctor was _finally_ within arm’s reach, and---” he stretched one hand outwards, reaching for someone who wasn’t there, someone he had walked away from.

Someone he missed with a deep, burning ache.

They sat some time in silence, letting ash fall over them.

Standing in her TARDIS doorway, Clara turned over her shoulder to look at the Master, who tore his gaze away from the burning rubble, his dark eyes locking onto hers. He nodded and she turned, stepped back into her TARDIS, and set off to find Ashildr.


End file.
